Survivor Series (2012)
Survivor Series (2012) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE. It took place on November 18, 2012 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. It was the 26th annual Survivor Series event and the first one held in Indiana. The event received 212,000 pay-per-view buys, down from 281,000 buys the previous year. Seven matches were scheduled on the event's card and one match took place on the pre-show. The main event saw Eve Torres retains the Divas' Champion against Kaitlyn, then Antonio Cesaro retains the United States Champion against R-Truth and CM Punk defeating John Cena and Ryback for triple threat match to retain to WWE Champion. This event is notable for the onscreen debut of The Shield are Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. Production Background This event was originally scheduled at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh. However, this booking inadvertently conflicted with the National Football League's schedule for the 2012 season, which pitted the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Baltimore Ravens in a home game on the same night. Despite Pittsburgh being a strong WWE market dating from the territorial days of professional wrestling, the WWE decided to make no attempts to locally compete against the fan base of the Steelers (especially since the game is against the team's arch-rival) and moved Survivor Series to the Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. WWE compensated Pittsburgh by having a double Raw/SmackDown taping in December, before giving the city a "Big Four" PPV with the now-infamous 2014 Royal Rumble. Storylines The professional wrestling matches at Survivor Series featured professional wrestlers performing as characters in scripted events pre-determined by the hosting promotion, WWE. Storylines between the characters played out on WWE's primary television programs, Raw and SmackDown. On the October 29, 2012 episode of Raw, a Survivor Series elimination match between a team managed by Mick Foley, and a team led by CM Punk was scheduled. Originally Punk captained the team which also included The Miz, Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow and Alberto Del Rio, whereas Foley's team was to consist of Ryback, Kofi Kingston, Kane, Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton. The team members were involved in many feuds: Hell in a Cell, Team Rhodes Scholars (Rhodes and Sandow) had unsuccessfully challenged Team Hell No (Kane and Daniel Bryan) for the Tag Team Championship and the Miz had failed to win the Intercontinental Championship from Kingston. Del Rio had also lost to Orton at the event. However, the main feud was between the WWE Champion CM Punk and Ryback. Ryback had lost a title match at Hell in a Cell after the referee Brad Maddox low-blowed him, before a fast count to give Punk the pinfall victory. Ryback then took out his frustration on Punk and Maddox, first press-slamming Maddox out of the ring into the side of the cell, then chasing Punk to the top of the cell, where Ryback caught him and performed his finishing move, Shell Shocked. There were many changes: On the November 5 episode of Raw, The Miz quit the team due to Punk abandoning his team in an attack by Team Foley and was replaced by Wade Barrett, who Paul Heyman had recruited. Furthermore, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon questioned Vickie Guerrero's decision to place Punk in an elimination match instead of letting him defend his title, and forced Vickie Guerrero to remove Punk and Ryback from the elimination match. Dolph Ziggler replaced Punk as captain of the team, which was now renamed Team Ziggler. Ryback's replacement was to be chosen by a RAW active poll, with the choices The Miz, Santino Marella, and Zack Ryder being candidates. Rhodes was replaced by David Otunga at the event due to an injury sustained in the lead-up to the event. Instead of competing in the Survivor Series elimination match, CM Punk was scheduled to defend his WWE Championship in a triple threat match against Ryback and John Cena, whom Punk had wrestled to a draw at Night of Champions. Survivor Series also included a rematch from Hell in a Cell between Sheamus and Big Show for the World Heavyweight Championship. At Night of Champions, Kaitlyn was attacked by an unknown woman moments before she was set to face off against Layla for the WWE Divas Championship, which led to Eve Torres replacing Kaitlyn and winning the title. In the weeks that followed, the evil Aksana was eventually revealed as Kaitlyn's attacker, doing so under Eve's orders. As a result, a Triple Threat Match took place at Hell In A Cell, with Eve defeating Layla and Kaitlyn to retain the title. On the November 12 edition of Raw, Kaitlyn defeated Layla to earn a Divas Championship match at Survivor Series. Justin Gabriel and Tyson Kidd were initially scheduled to face 3MB in the pre-show available free on YouTube, but were replaced with Team Co-Bro (Santino Marella and Zack Ryder) due to being placed in a different match at the event. Results Other on-screen personnel See also * List of WWE pay-per-view events * Survivor Series Category:Survivor Series Category:World Wrestling Entertainment pay-per-view events Category:2012 Pay-Per-View Events